Pumpkin Poke Cake with Whipped Cream, Pecans, and Caramel Sauce

Wintertime is baking season and this easy Pumpkin Caramel Poke Cake combines a luscious caramel, pillowy whipped cream, and crunchy pecans with a simple pumpkin sheet cake. Simple to make and a breeze to take along to potlucks or delight guests at home.

I came across the recipe on the Go Bold with Butter website, a great resource for baking and cooking, year-round. It caught my attention during the autumn holiday season, but I’m way too fond of pumpkin to stop enjoying it just because certain signature holidays have come and gone!

The original recipe calls for cinnamon, but I added cardamom, cloves, and ginger, and next time I I may use nutmeg and allspice, or leave out the spices and let the pumpkin flavor rule.

This cake comes together quickly — I used a whisk rather than a mixer, for both the wet and dry ingredients and for combining them into a thick batter.

Into my well-buttered ovenproof glass 13 x 9 inch pan it went….

…and all was well until I noticed that I had left the salt sitting on the counter. What to do?

If it were raisins or nuts or vanilla extract, I would have left it out. But since salt is a key ingredient in baking, for flavor as well as leavening, I sighed, scraped the batter back into the bowl, stirred in the salt, and poured it back into the baking pan, wiping the extra batter off once I had re-filled the pan. This photo is the after picture, and while I know I lost a little in the process, the cake came out generously shaped and delicious.

Note to self: Keep things together, especially when some are in tiny bowls on full-of-things countertops!

Here’s my handsome cake, salted and spiced and sweetened just fine.

Then, since it’s a Poke Cake, I looked for good tools, and came up with these two from my batterie de cuisine! A wooden chopstick and the handle of a beloved wooden spoon. Be sure to poke all the way down to the bottom of the pan, so that the caramel sauce can bless this cake every which way!

The caramel sauce is a speedy-quick brown sugar-and-butter concoction…

And spreading it all over the cake is fun — perfect place for little helpers to lend a hand. Consider transferring the warm sauce to a pitcher for easier pouring, or have them spread it around and into the holes as you pour it on.

Remember to save a little of the caramel sauce to drizzle over the whipped cream on the finished cake. You’ll have plenty, and if you make this ahead and want to refrigerate the caramel-kissed cake for the next day, cover both the cake and the extra sauce, and then set them both out to warm up 30 minutes or more before finishing-it-up time. You can gently reheat the sauce if it seems to too thick; or stir in a spoonful of extra cream to bring its texture back to smooth and luscious.

It’s a beauty, isn’t it? You could use this whipped cream and caramel-sauce topping on any sheet cake — poke cake is just cake with space for extra goodness, and this flavoring finish would be fine on spice cake, chocolate cake, or vanilla cake.

I cut this into 12 pieces, but think I could stretch it even further, since it’s rich and since you may be presenting it at an occasion where there are multiple desserts to choose from and people want “just a taste”, really!

Gorgeous, festive, delicious, and yet simple to make and take, this luscious dessert is a wintertime winner. I've lightly adapted this recipe, which I noticed on the "Go Bold With Butter" website last fall. I've made it with canned pumpkin as well as with home-roasted butternut squash aand I plan to make it with roasted, mashed sweet potatoes next. Play with the spices to suit yourself: cut it back to a teaspoon of cinnamon, or add your favorite combo of sweet spices. Consider adding chopped pecans to the cake for a little extra crunch. Allow an hour after baking and before serving, for the warm cake to absorb the luscious caramel sauce. Remember to store the cake (if you have any left once you've presented it to your lucky guests) in the refrigerator, since whipped cream needs that chill. To make ahead: You could prepare this dessert through the step of pouring caramel over the cake, and then cover and refrigerate for a day. Close to serving time, make whipped cream and finish the cake with pecans and caramel sauce.

For the cake, combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and cloves) in a medium bowl, and use a whisk or a fork to mix them well.

In a large bowl, beat eggs well, and then stir in pumpkin and vanilla; mix well.

Add the melted butter and stir to combine everything evenly and well.

Add the flour-sugar mixture and stir quickly, just until the flour disappears and the batter is smooth.

Scrape batter into the well-buttered pan, smoothing it out to the edges, and then bake at 350 degrees F until cake is puffed and nicely browned, 35 to 40 minutes; set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, make the caramel sauce, placing the brown sugar, butter, and cream in a medium saucepan. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring gently, as the butter melts and the brown sugar dissolves. When the mixture comes to a boil, adjust the heat to maintain a lively simmer and cook, stirring often, until smooth and thickened into a luscious sauce, 5 to 7 minutes.

Add the vanilla and salt, stir well, and remove from heat.

While the caramel sauce cools, prepare the cake, poking holes all over the surface, about 1 inch apart, using the handle of a wooden spoon or a chopstick and poking all the way to the bottom..

Setting aside ⅓ cup of caramel sauce to drizzle over the whipped cream, pour the remaining warm caramel sauce over the cake, spreading it out to fill the holes and glaze the entire cake.

Cover with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 1 hour; longer is fine.

To finish the cake, pour the cold heavy cream or whipping cream into a bowl and beat at medium high speed until it holds soft peaks.

With mixer running, add the sugar and the pure vanilla extract and beat at medium high speed until everything is well combined and the cream holding its shape beautifully and well.

Spread whipped cream over the cake.

Drizzle the reserved ⅓ cup of caramel sauce over the whipped cream and then sprinkle the cake with the chopped pecans.

Serve at once; or cover carefully and chill until about 20 minutes before serving time.

Cut into 12 squares and serve, keeping any remaining cake covered and refrigerated for 1 to 2 days.

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About Nancie

Nancie McDermott is a food writer and cooking teacher, and the author of fourteen cookbooks. Her passion is researching and celebrating traditional food in its cultural context, and her beloved subjects are two seemingly different places with much in common: the cuisines of Asia and of the American South. Nancie gained her Southern kitchen wisdom as a Piedmont North Carolina native, and her Asian culinary research commenced soon after college, when she was sent to northeastern Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer.[clearfix]